


not tonight

by silverpetals97



Category: We Are The Tigers - Allen
Genre: Afterlife, Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Ghosts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:33:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27080494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverpetals97/pseuds/silverpetals97
Summary: Farrah and Clark might as well have planned to meet here at midnight.
Relationships: Annleigh & Farrah (We Are The Tigers), Annleigh/Clark (We Are The Tigers)
Kudos: 14





	not tonight

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted to tumblr, written for the flash fiction friday prompt "we meet at midnight". enjoy!
> 
> __  
> **tws: alcoholism, self-depreciation, discussions of death/murder.**  
> 

Farrah was confused.

She had woken up on a cold morning on an even colder stone sidewalk, a seething pain stabbing her chest. And the sun. Farrah could swear that that ball in the sky was out to get her.

Farrah screwed her eyes shut, muttering profanities at everything around her. Did she really get  _ that  _ drunk last—

Oh.

_ Oh _ .

The realization dawned on her the way suspense and revelation built up in a horror movie before crashing into a traumatic crescendo, unadulterated pain scoring her scene.

Farrah was dead.

Stabbed in the shower by a murderous cheerleading captain. What a way to go, huh.

She blinked. Surprisingly, the shock had died down as quick as it had come. The pain, she’d become acclimated to, dulling its importance down to that of a slight migraine.

Only one question sat at the forefront of her mind:

What now?

Clark was lost.

Soft grass under him tickled him awake, eyes fluttering to be met with the star-speckled night sky. His temples throbbed as though someone had bashed him in the head. The air was too cold.  _ Should have brought a jacket _ , he thought.

The forest around him sent even more chills as he stood. It was pitch black, as if he had plunged into a world of shadows or silhouettes. Only the stars seemed to be alight, and even then they were so far away.

Clark knew he should have paid better attention on the way to Riley’s… 

House. Riley’s house. Where he proposed to the love of his life.

Where he was, in fact, bashed in the head and…

And died.

A pit formed in his stomach. That couldn’t be right. He couldn’t be dead. This wasn’t even Heaven.

_ Was _ he in Heaven?

It took days for either of them to regain their bearings in this… afterlife. They found they were still bound to the earth, for some reason.

Farrah didn’t take long to find the O'Daniel house again. She’d woken up just a few blocks away from Riley’s, and navigation came easily to her as a ghost. But she also delayed seeing her family.

At first, she didn’t want to see them—mostly Annleigh—at all. She didn’t have to. It was her afterlife. But the longer she staved it off, the harder it was to not be inexplicably drawn back to the remnants of her human life.

All Clark wanted was to find the O'Daniel house—or rather, to find Annleigh. But all this was too much to process, right there, in the middle of a dark forest with a frankly annoying headache.

When he did finally make peace with it, he found that the forest was most definitely  _ not _ a place he was familiar with. It wasn’t even in Salem. Needless to say, getting back was an arduous journey.

And Farrah and Clark might as well have planned to meet here at midnight, because the two ghosts found themselves in Annleigh’s room as the clock struck twelve.

“Riley got you too, huh,” Farrah sniffed, turning her eyes away from the sleeping girl, and to her ghostly companion.

“Riley— _ what _ ?” Clark could only gawk. “Riley killed you?”

“Who killed  _ you _ ?”

“Reese!”

Oh.

“Never took Reese as the killer type.”

“It was an accident,” he clarified. “But Riley _ stabbed you!” _

Good thing the cat wasn’t here, he realized. Could cats sense ghosts?

“Yeah,” she shrugged. At his expression, Farrah added, “I’m kinda over it.”

Clark moved toward Annleigh, trying to touch her shoulder. He phased right through, as expected—but didn’t mean he still wasn’t upset.

But maybe… 

Meanwhile, Farrah slumped, sitting on the daybed by the window. Annleigh’s eyes had bags resting under them, and every so often she would twitch or yelp in her sleep. She wasn’t like this before the sleepover…

_ “I want to be a good sister!” _

_ “You are  _ not _ my sister.” _

If Farrah were honest, those words stung more than the pain of dying.

Was she at fault?

Was she that bad of a sister? Of a person?

Farrah tried to stop the landslide that was her thoughts, but it was spiraling far too fast to pull the brakes on. Being in the same room as Annleigh only made it worse. Hell, this was why she didn’t want to come back in the first place.

She tried to calm her breathing, but there was no breathing to calm. No, she was a girl who got killed by her own cheer captain. A girl who wasn’t strong enough or better enough to stay away from alcoholism. A girl who inadvertently hurt her own family.

And a girl who couldn’t move on.

Maybe—

A scream rang through the room, shaking Farrah out of her stupor.

Annleigh was not hallucinating.

She felt it—she was sure. A light graze of her arm that was almost weirdly familiar. And yes, she was alone, at midnight, in this room.  _ Alone _ .

She went back to sleep. Or would have, if she hadn’t heard a whisper in the wind. It almost sounded like… 

_ “—leigh!” _

She screamed.

Something that looked like Clark stood at her bedside, looking part constipated and part pleased with himself.

“It worked,” it gasped.

“It’s just your mind playing tricks,” she told herself, quiet enough for only her to hear. Clark wasn’t here.

Her heart pounded as the apparition approached her. Maybe this was a sign from God, or something. Or maybe it’s her brain going mad. It wrapped its arms around her, icy to the touch.

“It’s me,” it said.

Naturally, she shoved it off. Or tried to. Her hands phased right through.

The apparition frowned and disappeared, but not before she caught the start of a sentence:

“I love—”

“—you, forever.”

Clark pulled back as he stopped materializing. He tried again and again, to hold her, to talk to her, to hear her voice, anything. But Annleigh, though shaken, drifted back to sleep.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. “You’re out of energy. You need to rest.”

Clark sighed. Farrah was right.

He would come again, be with her again. But not tonight.

He blew the sleeping girl a kiss and, against his wishes, disappeared into the night.

Farrah was not ready for this.

Not yet.

She would talk to her sister, make up. She would move on.

But not tonight.

She faded, too.

As she drifted to sleep, Annleigh caught two words from a very familiar voice.

_ “I’m sorry.” _

If Farrah were really here, Annleigh would have said the exact same thing.


End file.
